More than ten years ago, the Christ-o-sphere was rocked to its foundations over divorce. As it turned out, evangelical couples divorced each other more than those from any other religion. Worse still (from their standpoint), atheists divorced at a lower rate than any other religious group! In the intervening years Read more
Last week, a remarkable story unfolded at the New York Times about the growing absence of women in evangelical churches. This in itself is not too surprising. Just a few months ago, we covered the beginning of that story. Women are, indeed, finding their freedom from that oppressive system in Read more
It’s a parable for the ages, really, what happened with Jimmy Carter. Once upon a time, what people knew about Jimmy Carter likely went along these lines: First, he was a one-term Democratic President of the United States, presiding over a time of great economic and political turmoil. Second, before Read more
Every single time something big happens to make evangelicals look terrible, a bunch of them start fretting about Bad Christians. So it’s not surprising that with the 2024 elections upon us, they’re starting to write opinion posts trying to sway the flocks away from what they view as distinctly un-Jesusy Read more
Last time we met up, I showed you an interview Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leader Philip Robertson did with some evangelical dude on YouTube. Last year, Robertson became the Chairman of the SBC’s top-ranked Executive Committee (EC). Alas for him, he came to this position at a really bad time Read more
Last week, Christa Brown knocked it out of the park again with a post about a self-serving comment from Philip Robertson about the systemic abuse problem in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). He’s the new Chair of the SBC’s top-ranked Executive Committee (EC), you see, and his hardliner faction is Read more
The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) might be the most public-facing and visible group within the entire Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). For about a decade and a half now, hyperconservative SBC leaders have publicly bristled at the ERLC and its leaders’ decisions. This week, though, the friction between the Read more
Especially when evangelicals like Matt Chandler get their grubby hands on real power, I really wish that they had some real accountability in their broken system. It’s hard even to imagine how this schmuck has a job still, after all the terrible things he’s done to his congregation. And yet Read more
On June 7th, Paul Pressler died (archive). For many decades, he’d functioned as the Kingmaker of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). But he died in near-obscurity. Nobody quite seemed sure of what to do about his so-called legacy: the Conservative Resurgence of the SBC that turned it forevermore ultraconservative. You Read more
Paul Pressler, possibly the most influential evangelical in modern times, recently died. As evangelicals are wont to do when their leaders die, they are already hard at work analyzing his legacy. Well, sort of. One official Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) site seems eager to forget he ever existed. But they Read more